Home Affordable Modification Program Modifications down 27%
New data was released on 9/22/10 by Treasury and HUD on the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Just over 33,000 homeowners received a PERMANENT HAMP modification in August, 2010. This figure is down 27% below the number of PERMANENT HAMP modifications in July, 2010.
The borrowers whom received the PERMANENT HAMP modifications have seen their mortgage payments drop by a median of 36%, or more than $500 per month. Homeowner’s who received these modifications saw their housing expenses fall from 45% to 31% of their monthly income.
In August, 2010, 26,628 TRIAL HAMP modifications were added to the HAMP roster. Currently there are 202,521 active trial modifications. Federal officials are pushing the loan servicers to make decisions for borrowers who have completed the trial phase and either drop them from the program or make them permanent modifications.
The Treasury stated that the most of the cancellations are due to insufficient documents received or missed or late trial payments. In addition, if their principal housing expenses are already less than 31% they do not qualify for the program.
Is Home Affordable Modification Program Hampered?
The U.S. Treasury released statistics the end of July, 2010 for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) program. The statistics showed that loans that have been permanently modified had a re-default rate to be around 2% – 5.9% 60 or more days past due after modification and 1.7% 90 or more days delinquent. When those statistics came out, they received a huge outcry from analysts questioning the validity of these statistics.
The Treasury pulled the numbers and re-evaluated the statistics after retaining a third-party consultant to provide independent validation. A few weeks later, they corrected the re-default assessments as follows: 10% of six month old permanent modifications are 60+ days delinquent and 6% are 90+ days delinquent.
Analysts say that’s still too low and the rates will surely go higher the longer the program is in place. Up until six months ago, permanent modifications had been offered to only about 434,716 borrowers. The Treasury has cancelled the temporary modifications of 616,839 borrowers.
The analysts at Barclays are predicting a 60% re-default rate and Fitch Ratings projects 55-75%.
http://www.dsnews.com/articles/print-view/treasury-corrects-its-math-for-hamp-redefaults-2010-08-12
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HAMP: Still fundamentally broken (hsh.com) Treasury Correction: Modified Mortgages Perform Less Favorably (blogs.wsj.com) Bank of America Permanent HAMP Modifications Increase 5.9% in July (housingwire.com)
